1. He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. 2. He started playing guitar when he was 12. 3. He wrote in his 1959 Hibbing High School yearbook that he planned “to join Little Richard.” 4. He moved to New York City in January 1961…

It’s October 26, and the four women of Luscious Jackson have hopped into a limo in Greenwich Village bound for La Guardia Airport and a flight to Las Vegas, where they will open for R.E.M. the next night at the 12,000-seat Thomas & Mack Center. Cruising down Fifth Avenue, guitarist…

Flaming Lips Clouds Taste Metallic (Warner Bros.) Let’s play free association. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think “Oklahoma City”? Right-wing kooks with fertilizer bombs? The site of the world’s tallest radio tower (KOMA)? The famed test market for both McRibs and MTV? Not if you’re…

David Bowie/Nine Inch Nails Desert Sky Pavilion October 18, 1995 David Bowie’s career has always been a masquerade. Most U.S. fans first encountered the D-man when he strutted about saying he was Ziggy Stardust, rock ‘n’ roll messiah from Mars. Adopting that persona was hardly a boost to Bowie’s credibility,…

Phish Heads, Phish Heads, stoned and tripping Phish Heads. Phish Heads, Phish Heads, having their fun. My brain’s still shrouded in a pleasant purple haze from the Phish show at Compton Terrace on October 11, but I’m happy to report that the Deadhead demographic has apparently made a smooth transition…

Red Hot Chili Peppers One Hot Minute(Warner Bros.) The serrano boys have peeled the tube socks off their dicks and pulled on their thinking caps for this fire dance of an album–easily the band’s best since it put funk/punk on the map in 1985 with Freaky Styley. Four years back,…

Jesse Dayton figures it’s about time to get another tattoo. “I’m walkin’ lopsided with only one,” he says. The Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter scored his skin art 12 years ago, when he was a 17-year-old, greasy-haired rockabilly guitarist who opened a show for Brian Setzer. Setzer (a Jersey boy) advised Dayton…

I didn’t know whom to believe. Last week, I heard two such disparate stories about a booking gone awry at Nile Theater that I felt like Judge Wapner presiding over a surreal episode of The People’s Court. The plaintiff–Geoff Sanoff of the Washington, D.C., punk outfit Edsel–claims that Nile Theater…

Happy birthday, dear Ballroom. Happy birthday to you. Now that that’s out of the way, I have a question: What the hell do so many people have against Electric Ballroom? In the ten weeks I’ve had to acclimate to the Valley music scene, I’ve heard no club or club owners…

Memo to: Terry Hardin, KZON-FM general manager Re: The Zone’s crossover to a Rock Alternative format, our conversations on the same, KEDJ’s response, and other assorted strangeness cc: Coda readers Terry– I’ve got a question for you: Ever heard of this powerhouse FM station in Denver called “The Peak”? Call…

Beer, weed, girlies and greed. That’s what little Phunk Junkeez are made of. In five years, the locally grown punk-hop act has graduated from a series of infamous break-and-enter warehouse concerts to touring the nation on corporate money. “Trauma/Interscope treats us great,” says the PJ rapper Soulman in a phone…

Generiks Cactus Jelly-Jive? (World Records) I’m thinking Blue Cheer. I’m thinking Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. I’m thinking Feargal Sharkey. I’m thinking Nervous Norvus. I’m thinking everybody who’s ever sounded worried delivering a lyric. Whether Tempe’s Generiks are musing about being a fetus (“If I was a fetus, I’d probably make…

There is a huge difference between merely “watching” TV and learning to respond aggressively to it. The difference, for most people, is the difference between the living and dying of their own brains. –Hunter S. Thompson, 1994 I don’t own a television and I’m smug about it. People try to…

Nicolo Paganini was the principal violin virtuoso of the 19th century. He was also a madman. Wild-eyed in appearance and sinister in demeanor, Paganini made little effort to dispel rumors that he had killed one of his wives and strung his instruments with her viscera. It was also widely believed…

It happened quickly. On August 27, KUKQ-AM program director, Valley alternative radio veteran and longtime indie music maven Jonathan L. announced on his weekly Virgin Vinyl program that he was leaving the station, “effective almost immediately.” He made good on his word the next morning, passing the torch to music…

Thank God for Deepak Chopra. If it wasn’t for that Svengali of self-help, I’d have the mental acuity of an ether addict right now. My tally for the weekend: 12 bands, one rave, and a nerve-jangling run-in with the cops. It’s a few hours ’til twilight on Monday morning, and…

Every day is like Christmas when you’re a music editor–each morning brings a pile of packages with your name on them. Thirty-six parcels in one day is the standing record for my five-week tenure here. Of course, as with any Christmas, some of the presents always suck. I never know…

I first heard Primus when a stoned philosophy major lured me out of a dorm hallway with the offer of a new version of rock that would “blow your mind like an orgasm.” She was standing in her doorway holding a CD, which I took to check out the cover…

You know what I hate about rock? I hate tie-dyed tee shirts. I wouldn’t wear a tie-dyed tee shirt unless it was dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia.–Kurt Cobain, 1992 The only tie-dye I remember from Lollapalooza ’95 was a cut-rate, red- and…

Foo Fighters Foo Fighters (Roswell/Capitol) “Now what?” God, how Dave Grohl must have grown to loathe that query over the last year. At least now he’s finally come up with an answer, and a good one at that. With his new band’s eponymous debut release, Nirvana’s former drummer has stepped…

If the words “Letters to Cleo” sound familiar, chances are you either lived in Boston earlier this decade or watch Melrose Place on a regular basis. Former Bostonians may have witnessed the alterna-pop quintet claw its way to prominence in the notoriously competitive Bean Town club circuit, keeping company with…